Whatever did South Florida theater do for kicks before Rich Simone? The poobah of parody strikes again from his home base at the Shores Theatre, with a high camp yet surprisingly poignant Bat Boy: The Musical.

The science-fiction spoof rocked off-Broadway for a couple of months in 2001 with a story ripped from the bowels of the Weekly World News. Bat Boy even comes with a WWW license agreement; what it doesn't have (or need) is permission from other famous Broadway musicals, which come in for hellacious ribbing.

IMAGINE some mad showbiz buff chucking Dracula, The Elephant Man, Phantom of the Opera and Pygmalion into the theatrical blender, adding bits of Frankenstein and The Lion King as afterthoughts. Then he turns on the juice, and, lo, the result is the weird mix of spoof B-movie and cherry-pie sentimentality its American creators have called Bat Boy. When I caught it off-Broadway in 2001, they hoped it would become a cult musical along the lines of The Rocky Horror Show; but that didn’t happen then and isn’t likely to happen here in Britain.

Deven May, reprising his Los Angeles and New York appearances in the title role, has bags of energy and even a goofy charm. Mark Wing-Davey's direction tries to reconcile the show's conflicting moods, by being as smart as its high points and papering over its stupidities, but to no avail.

Bat Boy is the worst show I have seen in the theatre for years. It is so bad it is almost good (there was disbelieving laughter from those able to see the funny side on the first night). Duty alone kept me in my seat beyond the interval. It is not the actors' fault - they sing gutsily.

Landis, who directed the film version of The Blues Brothers, is working on a script for the film with the three writers behind the stage musical, Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming and Laurence O’Keefe. Alden hopes to have a finished script by March and expects to start filming in the UK by 2006. The film will be produced independently by Michael Alden Productions.

Bat Boy may be derived from an improbable piece of tabloid sensationalism, but it is a timely show which speaks to themes which run through so much of this year's Fringe: how society demonises those who are different, the determination to deny one's self in order to fit in; how "Christian charity" quickly closes its doors to those it deems unsuitable. Moreover, it does all this within an evening of singing, dancing fun guaranteed to make you laugh.

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